The Upfront Issue Cover That We Almost Got to Use

How One Day Can Change the Map

Published on May 14, 2014.

What you're looking at here is the cover that might have been. Done by Ryan Heshka, it illustrates the majesty, madness and money involved in the annual upfront season. And it broke our hearts to scrap it.

Credit: Illustration by Ryan Heshka for Ad Age

But last Thursday night, when Publicis and Omnicom announced they were saying "never mind" to their planned $35 billion "merger of equals," it instantly knocked out our planned cover story. Here's the cover that ran instead: